Tight oil is a form of light crude oil held in shale deep below the earth’s surface.

“Agreement has been reached with Halliburton to commence drilling on two further appraisal wells in 2018, to further evaluate reservoir potential, optimise completions, and initiate long-term production,” he told a news conference in Manama.

Sheikh Mohammed said he was not sure yet how much of the estimated 80 billion barrels was recoverable, but the kingdom aims to attract foreign oil and gas firms to develop the resources.

“The newly-discovered resource, which officials expect to be ‘on production’ within five years, is expected to provide significant and long-term positive benefits to the kingdom’s economy – both directly and indirectly through downstream activities in related industries,” a statement by Bahrain’s National Communication Centre said.

The new energy resource is expected to contain many times the amount of oil produced by Bahrain’s existing oilfields, as well as large amounts of gas, state news agency BNA reported on Sunday.

The small non-OPEC Gulf oil producer gets it oil revenues from two fields: the onshore Bahrain field, and the offshore Abu Safah field, which is shared jointly with Saudi Arabia. (Reporting by Davide Barbuscia; writing by Rania El Gamal; editing by Jason Neely and Adrian Croft)